Company reports solid growth and metrics. Keep an eye on it as discounted domains come up for renewal.
Donuts has summarized data about its progress in 2017 and there are some interesting tidbits:
- Year-over-year growth in new registration volume (excluding new TLD launches) has increased by 34%
- One million new registrations so far in 2017, bringing total domains under management to 3 million
- Average renewal rate for a Donuts TLD is 71% (weighted by volume)
These numbers are indeed encouraging for Donuts’ business model and perhaps some of the other new TLD registries.
Donuts has done some fairly large promotions this year with discount pricing for initial registrations. It had every TLD in its stable on sale for a while and most domains were under $10 for the first year. 60 were about $5 or less retail. The low prices have certainly juiced initial registrations.
Domains that cost a lot more to renew than the initial registration fee usually have lower renewal rates. However, Donuts’ discounting wasn’t the same as some registries that did extreme discounting with a goal of attracting domain investors in China.
The 71% renewal rate is in line with what the company told me it was getting a little over a year ago.
Rightside (now owned by Donuts) reported 59% overall renewal rates earlier this year with 50% on first-year renewals. Rightside has traditionally offered more first-year discounts, so I expect Donuts’ renewal rates to slip as discounted domains come up for renewal.
It will be interesting to watch over the next few quarters.
Robert says
It would be interesting to hear how the first year renewal rate developed year over year. The average renewal rate I assume I is an aggregate of all their renewals.
Andrew Allemann says
Yes, that’s an aggregate. As you know, renewal rates typically increase the longer a domain has been registered.
Robert says
Sure, however seeing the development of first year renewal rates would be more meaningful in terms of actual performance, especially considering everything that is going on in the nTLD space.